Results 7,841-7,860 of 10,459 for speaker:Bertie Ahern

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Children who need extra help are getting more support than ever before and the majority of extra teachers hired have been targeted, rightly, to provide extra support for children with special needs, those in disadvantaged areas and those who need help with their English. Not only have these additional teachers made an immeasurable difference in the lives of all these children, they provide...

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: As I said yesterday, as in every health service in the world, there are clearly some difficulties in some areas of health, although not in a large proportion of areas. I acknowledge what has been achieved: a 7% increase in day care cases to over 590,000, an increase in outpatient attendances to more than 2.766 million, over 1.2 million attendances at accident and emergency departments and...

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: There are 780,000 extra home care hours, bringing the total to 11.8 million, additional home care packages and additional day care packages. Every day there are new announcements and new movements helping the health service.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Deputy Kenny asked about the voting machines. I must remind him that he promised not alone that we would have voting machines——

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: His party wants to go back to pencils——

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Peann luaidhe, which he does not believe in and is ridiculous. He promised at University College Galway that he would bring in voting on the Internet. That is what he said.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: His party wants pencils. I wanted voting machines and he wanted to use the Internet so he should not accuse me.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Deputy Kenny had his chance so he should sit down. I admit in the national Parliament today that there was a delay on the M50. A van ran into a truck so I am very sorry that it disrupted people.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I was not driving.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: It shows the huge success of the tunnel in only a few months that as soon as there was a delay everything happened. I was waiting since Christmas to see what day would the Opposition stand up, but it had to wait, because it is a huge success, another massive part of the planning infrastructure of the Government.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Because a van ran into a truck, the only thing the Opposition can raise in the national Parliament is that a van ran into a truck.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: That is Deputy Rabbitte's view.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The Government's view is that we wanted to build a modern prison that had all the facilities unlike some of our prisons that have deplorable facilities and bad sanitary facilities, which have been highlighted in the yearly reports from the prison inspectorate. We wanted to build a state-of-the-art prison on a large site that could accommodate a large prison, with all the ancillary...

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has given full documents and details to the Comptroller and Auditor General and I will not go into that debate here. I should have said to Deputy Rabbitte that the evaluation has been completed and I understand the preferred bidder will be announced by Easter. We required a modern, stand alone large prison on a secure site that...

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: That was the priority of Government.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: It is the same old story with the Opposition. They criticise existing facilities but we are trying to improve the lot of unfortunate people in society who require proper facilities when they are incarcerated. That is a fair approach.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The issues of planning, design and all of those matters will be resolved as is always the case. To continue having prisons in confined sites is not a good idea.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: In sites like the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum——

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: ——and Mountjoy. I am talking about sites that are ancient and where it is not possible to turn them into modern facilities for people.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I am surprised at the members of the Labour Party. If my colleague, Deputy Joe Costello, who is the leader of the prisoners' rights organisation, were here he would be appalled to hear the Labour Party Members opposing prisons.